Film Review-Karmeggedon, a film about Bhagavan Das

So why am i writing this, when i never do stuff like this on my blog? Because i think that this movie ultimately amounts to a hit piece on someone i used to know a little bit. That, and, i fear that this movie will just stoke the public cynicism towards "spirituality". We need spirituality in our lives. There are a lot of quick buck gurus out there. Bhagavan is not one of them. His truth is far, far more complicated.

http://karmageddonthemovie.com/
http://www.bhagavandas.com/home.html
http://login.ramdass.org/WP/

Quick background: Bhagavan Das, born Kermit Michael Riggs, was one of the first Americans to go to India in the 60s, and was the person to introduce Ram Dass to Neem Karoli Baba. BD came back to the US after 7 years and became a sort of Rock star, drugs, sex, the whole bit. Google if you want to know more biography.

Jeff Brown is a Canadian lawyer who wanted to pursue his spirituality. So far, so good. He latched onto Bhagavan Das as a guru. Now the problems arise.

Bhagavan is both saint and sinner in one man. His spiritual kirtans and devotion are %150 sincere; he also has a large ego, likes food and drugs, loves sex with 18 year old girls, likes money and shopping, and talks in very plain, vulgar language. In short, a very earthy man, but one whose sins are venal and egotistic, not large and brutal, whose sins are more harmful to himself than anyone else, and whose spiritual practice has brought great light to many, many people. My testimonial: He taught me one of the greatest lessons of my spiritual life, which is that one can be a flawed human being and still be deeply, deeply spiritual.

For many people it is difficult to accept both the darkness and the light existing simultaneously. They usually feel the need to judge one way or the other. This movie focuses very much on the sinner side of Bhagavan. The saint gets little air time.

There is a phrase "when a pickpocket meets a saint, he sees only the pockets". My perception is that Jeff Brown simply was not spiritually mature enough to make this movie, but that his ego could not recognize this. The cynical, scared mind made this movie too soon, too quickly, not enough depth of practice to see more clearly a deeply complicated man.

A good example of this is the interview with Ram Das. Jeff does most of the talking, Ram Das gets in a word or two here and there. Why bother interviewing the man, if all you are going to do is repeat your own opinions. Maybe Ram Das did say a lot more and just got edited out, while Jeff Brown got edited in. I was really interested in what Ram Das had to say. I felt cheated, thought it was bullshit, a hatchet job. That may have been the point where i lost faith in this movie and the film maker.

In this movie Bhagavan really does display and talk about a lot of bad behaviour; ultimately i was left wondering if he was just trying to get Brown's goat, and i'm not going to defend or make excuses for bad behaviour, for example not honoring a contract he had signed to record some CDs.

I used to know Bhagavan at Harbin in the mid 90s when he was the kirtanwalla in residence. He was a totally no bullshit guy, anyone could talk to him, he made no pretenses about hiding his appetites. Didn't know him well, was not one of his inner circle, did play a dozen or so kirtans with him. One time, after the kirtan, i asked if i could hold his ektar (instrument). I literally got stoned and couldn't speak for about 15 minutes, just from holding the ektar for about a minute.
i loved his kirtans. I would lose interest after the kirtan was over when he started talking and playing guru, it just sounded to me like his ego took over. But in the kirtans, he really sounded as if he would die if god didn't come to him now. Very powerful, very real. I've never witnessed that degree of self surrender and self abnegation anywhere else. The lotus and the mud.

Another time i hitched a ride with Bhagavan from the front gate of Harbin to Santa Rosa (about 40 miles). He was driving this old total piece of junk someone had given him, and in about a mile the thing started to hesitate and grab. i totally expected the car to break down. Meanwhile, from the moment i had gotten in, i had heard Bhagavan doing his mantra. I jabbered away, he was polite enough to make some response, but basically he was into repeating his mantra, and this was not for my benefit. Anyway, the car keeps going, although i was sure that it was going to break down. We get to Calistoga, about halfway, Bhagavan pulls up to the coffee shop and says "i'm a scorpio, i need strong stimulation" (or something like that. Gets a coffee, offers to buy me one, we get to Santa Rosa a little later.

This movie was made 10 years after i knew Bhagavan. He's clearly changed, not just physically, and i did detect more negativity in him than i remembered- and, most people try to hide their flaws. Bhagavan is totally honest and sooner or later his seeds will be cooked and he will find peace in this world, not just in the world of spirit. i think that this will very much involve finding peace with his childhood with his mother, because even spiritual people have psychological issues.
I wish him nothing but good things.
Namaste
Jay Dancing Bear

Simple statement of my politics

My politics are very simple.

I don't mind if some people have more than other people, 
as long as everyone has enough, 
especially enough time,
and
nature is honored,
humans are honored,
animals are honored 

Ultimately politics is an expression of a society's spiritual consciousness; the openness of it's heart, the clarity of it's thinking, and the values, beliefs and assumptions that the society holds.

All the laws, legal systems, tax codes, economic systems, everything, are the expression of the spiritual consciousness, the psyche, and the values, beliefs and assumptions of a society.

Public Transportation

A few years ago i tried living in San Diego. I very quickly found out, no car=no life. Here are some letters i sent to a public transportation group and the San Diego MTS bus system.

 Dear Union Trib,

I ride the bus. I just got a brochure inviting me to take public transit to Padres games. Well, that's great, except that the last bus to my house leaves downtown at 6:42, doesn't go downtown on Saturday, and doesn't run at all on Sunday. It's no problem, if i want to walk home 4 miles from the nearest Trolley stop.

How much money is the economy of San Diego losing, because people can not get out to stores and ballgames. Drivers have a sense of entitlement that roads will be there, and no one questions that, yet public transit is viewed as some form of charity.

It's not; public transit is essential to the economy, yet this city funds it at starvation levels and the state plays mickey mouse games, while the air gets polluted and the roads clog up with traffic.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of public subsidies for sports stadiums are sold to the public, on the basis that they stimulate the economy, yet MTS was just forced to gut Sunday service, because they didn't have $7 million. The Padres would have 5,000 more people in the stands at every game, if people could get home. I'd go. That's economic stimulus.

I have a challenge for you; assign a reporter to try and live his life for a week using only public transit, see what it's like.

yours truly
jay d. bear

written March 2010
--------------------

DDear Mayor and City Council,

The roads are not safe.

One million San Diegans could accomplish the majority of their transit needs by riding a bicycle, if the roads were safe. They could buy a bicycle for $25 at a garage sale or thrift store, oil up the chain, put some air in the tires, and be good to go,
if the roads were safe. 
Kids could bike to school (and get some exercise), people could run small errands, bike to work, etc. 
if the roads were safe
The roads are not safe
I am specifically talking about surface roads, not freeways.

MTS has been forced to cut service, especially on evenings and Sundays. That means that there are a lot of jobs that people without a car can not apply for, because they can't get there, and that includes low income people who have trouble affording a car. I am speaking as someone who has worked a graveyard shift in a supermarket, who has been a janitor, a dishwasher, a security guard, all those low paying service jobs that need to be done. 

San Diego would be God's gift to the bicycle, if the roads were safe. Great weather, long flat stretches, perfect for non polluting two wheelers, if the roads were safe. 
The roads are not safe.

Also, just to mention all the drunk drivers on the roads when the bars close, and no public transit to keep them off the roads. Those bars and restaurants need a lot of service staff, people who could, perhaps, ride bicycles home if it was safe and not too far.
------

I live on a "quiet" street in Pt. Loma. My housemate's cat got killed by a speeding car. I was at a garage sale a few blocks away, told story to the guy, he said his dog was killed by a speeding car. This on "quiet", "side" streets. I have heard so many stories of bicyclists being hit by cars, and not just from people i've  talked to. I've sat at coffeeshops and overheard people talking about being hit by cars.

Too many San Diegans are being terrorized by dangerous, speeding drivers who feel like they own the road. 
I live about 4 miles from Old town transit center. If i thought i would survive the ride down Rosecrans, i could bicycle there and catch a trolley. However, i have no wish to die or be maimed for life. To tell you the truth, just crossing the street as a pedestrian can be quite an adventure, and i am a healthy, active man, not an old woman moving slow, like my 88yr old mother.
----------
I have not written you all just to bitch. Here are some specific proposals

1 A ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY FOR SPEEDING ON SURFACE STREETS
There are laws, speeding limits posted. Scofflaws ignore them. My understanding is that the role of the police department is to keep the public safe. What is more dangerous than unsafe driving?

I am requesting that you, San Diego elected officials, especially you, Mr. Mayor, direct the San Diego Police Department to adopt a zero tolerance policy towards speeding and unsafe driving in general.

Immediately start a citywide campaign to issue tickets to anyone speeding on a surface street. People will slow down, the roads will get safer.

The traffic laws are in place for a reason. Shouldn't drivers be required to obey them?

This will have the additional benefit of putting some money in the city's coffers.

2 Paint the bike lanes a solid color, i.e., not just a thin line, but a whole 3 foot wide paint job. 
It's a band aid, but it would help. Of course the real solution is completely separate bicycle routes, but as a step in the right direction, a paint job would be much more visible and save lives.

3 Have the planning department study the feasibility of planning bicycle use as %25 of transit use. It's cheap, it's healthy, it's fun. San Diego has enough traffic congestion and air pollution, it's not like it needs more. The bicycle is the perfect solution for a lot of people, if it can be made safe.
------------
It's true that a lot of people haven't thought of bicycling as much as i am suggesting, but when it talk to my car driving friends (i don't drive), when they think about it a little, the answer they usually give is that it sounds good and they would do more riding, if the safe bicycle routes were there.

Thank you for your time and attention to these matters.

Yours Truly,
Jay D. Bear

---------------------------- 
be well,
jay
----------
Dear MoveSD

I am putting my ideas in the form of an email. Please share them with the rest of the move staff
-------------
Strategy for Public Transportation

I live in two worlds here in San Diego. By birth and education, i am middle class, and my friends are middle class. On the other hand, as a musician i am poor and ride the bus, no car. Here's my take on what i see:
---The people i see on the bus (commuters excepted) seem %90 poor and low education. I doubt many are registered to vote. A lot of them don't speak English that well. As far as i can tell, there is almost no political power to be found in this group.
----My middle class friends, who are educated and politically empowered, are barely aware that public transportation exists, have no idea what it's like to ride, feel no connection with it whatsoever, no personal investment or motivation to make it better.
So where is the political will to provide a functional MTS going to come from, other than a few visionaries?
My answer, the business community.

The reason i am writing this is to say that, in my opinion,
MoveSD and other transportation groups would do well to do extensive, ongoing education and outreach to the Chamber of Commerce and the business community, making the following points;
* ACCESS How much money is business losing, because poorer people can not get to shops, restaurants, ballgames. Yes, low income people don't have as much money as the middle class, but there are a lot of them, and they do spend money. How many more seats would be filled in movie theatres, followed by a meal afterwards?
* EXTRA CASH TO SPEND If poorer people could save money by leaving their cars parked, they would have more money to spend at local business, and it would get spent.
* GAS PRICES As gas prices go up, even middle class people are going out less. If it's going to cost someone $20 in gas, just to go out for the day, they are less likely to go, and will have less money to spend. If they could safely, comfortably, conveniently get everywhere they wanted to go for a $5 day pass, local business would benefit.

* ACCESS TO JOBS-benefits both workers and employers
* EASIER, MORE COMFORTABLE COMMUTING this is more of a pitch to the middle class

-----------
* SPECIFIC PROPOSAL

* ONE CENT INCREASE IN SALES TAX, designated, legally reserved, for public trans. If the business community supported it, if middle class people got the idea that the benefits to SD's economy would benefit them, it would pass.

------
The other idea i got from last night is the huge need to form a coalition, a United Front, of every non-car transportation group in the city. Pedestrians, bicyclists, skateboarders, etc. Maybe a name like SANCOATS, san diego coalition of alternative transit supporters, or whatever.

-- 
be well,
jay

i do not hate the rich, and i do not want a revolution

I want to clarify one point. I do not hate the rich, i have no problem with some people having more than others, even much more. i don't begrudge it to them, i'm not jealous, i don't think they're bad people just because they've got a lot of bucks. I've met a lot of nice people who have money.

What i do have a BIG problem with is cheating, rigging the game, taking advantage of your position of power to exploit people as much as possible, to pay people as little as you can and charge them as much as possible in rents and other costs, so that you can engorge your already bloated asset sheet, while people go homeless and lack the simple basics of life.

i believe in the old fashioned values of an honest day's work for an honest day's wage, and a system that treats everyone fairly. An honest day's wage means a living wage, a wage such that you can take care of your expenses and have something left over. I do not believe that is happening today, not just in wages, but in every facet of economic life. How can a millionaire pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than a factory worker. How can a landlord take depreciation allowance, while a house owner can't. Why do you pay sales tax on the purchase of a hammer , but not a stock market transaction.

It's cheating, pure and simple, legal cheating because of legal bribes to government officials in the form of "campaign finance contributions", so that loopholes are added to obscure provisions of bills, often at the last minute, under the cover of darkness.

In my opinion, it's only a small percentage of the super elite who engage in this deliberate corruption of the system. My understanding is that most people with large incomes are trust fund babies who get their checks, they leave it to the money managers, usually one or two people in each family, to handle the business. The end result is the same, a system designed for the rich to get richer by feeding off of the rest of society.

In simple terms,
The poor and the middle class are just so much hamburger for the top tenth of one percent
The system is rigged
Government is bribed

so what else is new?
-------------------------
and as for revolution

I want change, i want evolution, i want what i consider fairness and decency.
I do not want a revolution, i don't want chaos, i don't want bloodshed, i don't want a violent takeover of the government. I don't need punishment of those i consider to have been wrongdoers in this situation, i just want for things to get to where one can make a decent living doing honorable work, which i wish would include being an artist, which is who i am.

The average person, including me, can live with the fact that they're being exploited, so long as we can still get by. What concerns me is that ruling elites tend to get stupidly, arrogantly, blindly greedy, rather than just plain greedy, and take so much that the common people don't have enough to live on, as in the French revolution. No longer content with %90, they want it all, and then things falls apart. In many cases, the situation gets worse after a revolution than before. I don't want that.

Fox news and right wing folks talk about the radicals on the left. My opinion is that the people the plutocracy needs to fear are the tea party types with guns in their hand, because when it does finally get through their thick skulls that the plutocracy has, in effect, declared war on them, they will fight back in the way they understand, violence. Left wingers talk a lot, sign petitions and post on Facebook, but they're a bunch of peaceniks, myself included. For example, i really believe the old phrase "hatred does not cease by hatred, but by love alone". I don't think the tea party thinks that way.

I'm not saying any of this is going to happen, i don't want it to, i don't think it will. The reason i am posting this is just to make clear that i want positive change, not violent revolution.

The End of the age of Materialism

 The first three words of ECOnomy are ECO (Jim Bell). That's the central truth we all need to remember. Sustainable is not some hippy dippy feel good idea, it's the key to our survival. Just like any individual, the economies of the world have to live on the budget of what the earth will sustain.

The economies of America and the world are based on fantasy and denial. Whether the societies are capitalist, socialist, communist or whatever, ultimately they are all materialists.

There's only so long the illusion that we can loot and pollute the earth without any consequences can be maintained.
Resources are not infinite,
the ability of the environment to absorb poisons of various sorts without serious consequences to our own health and well being has been reached, including electromagnetic pollution, not to mention various other manifestations of fantasy thinking, such as GMOs and fracking.

We are living in what could be called The Age of Pollution, or perhaps the Age of the Two Experiments, biological and electro-magnetic.
1) The Biological pollution experiment-Starting with the beginning of factories, toxins were spewed out in all directions. Now there are toxic chemicals in almost every product on the market today, especially widespread use of poisons to grow food. That has gone into overdrive with the sudden shift into GMO usage, basically using the whole world as a testing lab, and the people in it as guinea pigs.
2) The Electromagnetic pollution experiment-living organisms, indeed the earth itself, are electromagnetic beings just as much as we are flesh and bone. Starting with the widespread introduction of electricity, power lines everywhere,  now going into overdrive with computers, wifi, cellphones, cellphone towers. and all the rest of the electronics that modern life seems to revolve around, ubiquitous everywhere one goes, there is another worldwide experiment going on, an experiment in which the effects of all these devices are impacting every living being on the planet.
These are two big experiments.

We can no longer base our economies on the production and consumption of material goods. Particularly odious and destructive are disposability, and the conspicuous consumption and massive waste seen especially in the US and other wealthy countries.
Voluntary Simplicity and efficiency are the order of the day, but what about jobs?

One thing no one talks about when asking where will people work is that- how much income someone needs is directly dependent on prices, especially housing and food, and this is very much a function of the equality or inequality of a society, the degree of exploitation imposed by the haves on the have-nots.

How many hours do you have to work to pay your rent? In the US in the 50s, one could push a broom for $1/hr and rent a room for $10/month. You could pay rent with 10 hours work per month. Now the ratio is a lot more brutal. Who sets those prices. How do the laws of a country affect that? It's not so simple.

The simplest things people could do would be to
1) go vegetarian, even vegan
2) get out of their cars and on to a bicycle, walk or public transit
3) stop buying stuff not really needed

Sounds great, but how safe are the roads for bicycles, how much public transit is there? Can people get where they need to go and do what they need to do? That takes a different infrastructure.
What happens to all the people out of jobs because people stop buying? My view is that most jobs are unnecessary, especially when one calculates in the subsidized waste and inefficiency and consumerism so rampant today. However, those jobs feel very necessary to the people working them. Is America suddenly going to go to a 15 hour workweek, so that there is work for everyone? Will prices come down to adjust? It's not so simple.

It's one thing when disasters happen in isolated instances, but if it happens on a large scale?
What happens when rising oceans force people, including businesses, to move somewhere else?
What happens when storms and fires destroy homes and businesses?
What happens when various disasters happen as a result of fracking and other insane practices.
Etc. (too many things to list all
Where will people get money, how will they live?

1 What we work at, what jobs the economy is based on, must inevitably change, because right now jobs produce a lot of poisons, and this is simply not sustainable. Already cancer rates have skyrocketed,  not to mention all sorts of other health problems that ultimately come down to a toxic environment. Not to mention global climate disruption, the oceans being fished out, loss of soil nutrition, ad infinitum.
2 The whole issue of wage and social inequality will make a huge difference in how much suffering this change entails
3 Voluntary simplicity and conscious consumption must be seen as the patriotic and socially useful choices they are, rather than as a bunch of granola munchers living weird lives.

How can we have good lives, doing useful and productive work that doesn't result in poisoning ourselves and the planet?
How do we transition as gracefully as possible to this new economic system?

The issue is not just the rich who own the companies and the governments and buy the laws. The issue is the attitude shared by so many people that, in effect, the earth is just something to eat. Translated, that means that if their job, which pays their rent and buys their food, if doing that job means toxic waste in a river, well, they just do it. Perhaps they would prefer not to, but they don't feel they have a choice. Truth be told, in many cases they may not apparently have much choice.
Many may not even think about it all.

So now we get into values and self esteem. So long as people peg their self esteem to how much they earn and spend, especially how much stuff they buy, well, big problem. This is especially true of men, who often have been taught that the way to prove how much of a man they are is spend, spend, spend.
And for women, they seem to like lots of nice things.

Does it make a difference how we live our personal material lives?
In an old article, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been a real warrior for the environment, said that personal choices by a few wouldn't do much in the larger scheme of things, that laws were needed. Statistically speaking he is correct, however in metaphysical terms i think he's wrong. I think of the story about a mother who brought her child to Gandhi and said "please tell him to stop eating sugar". Gandhi said come back in two weeks. When they came back, Gandhi said "Stop eating sugar". The woman asked why they had to wait two weeks, Gandhi said, 2 weeks ago i had not stopped eating sugar.

Always carrying a shopping bag, coffee cup, portable plate and silverware, takeout container with you; being very conscious how much water runs when washing dishes, indeed starting with whether a dish really needs to be washed or not, these are small things, and let's face it, there are people who can waste in a week what we can save in a year, but... in metaphysics there is the principle of "if you take one step towards god, god takes ten steps towards you". It's really all a lesson in consciousness, consciousness in the everyday details of our lives as a spiritual practice.

Ultimately, what has created these problems is a lack of consciousness and self responsibility, what will solve them is consciousness and self responsibility on a global scale. i realize that's a lot to ask, but there it is.

Every spiritual teaching says find fulfillment within, don't look without. Ultimately i take the view that this whole massive crisis, this upheaval, is for the purposes of spiritual growth, of teaching consciousness, in the everyday details of our lives. In a lot of teachings, there is the view that we are spiritual beings having a material experience, and that all that falls shall rise again, that nothing is created or destroyed, just transformed, speaking on a spiritual and energetic level. None of which excuses or condones the rape of the earth by a society that is living unconsciously. Well, we are about to become a lot more conscious on a mass level, so see the silver lining, which is that, at the end of however long this next period of upheaval lasts, which could be hundreds of years, humanity will have evolved to a new level.

Where are the jobs for the %47

there are lots of jobs that need doing,
companies have the money to hire people,
instead the execs are putting the money in their own pockets
One major gripe of the tea party and people sympathetic to their views is that %47 of the population are lazy parasites who don't want to work and are being supported by hard working people like tea party members.
explicitly the idea is-people don't want to work, they would rather get handouts
implicitly is the idea that these people could be working.

Have you ever been in a store that seemed to be run on a skeleton crew, can't find anyone to ask a question, long lines at the cash register? Not to mention the value of experienced, helpful, motivated staff, rather than minimum wage kids. Have you been put on hold, while a recording said "we are experiencing an unusually high level of call volume".
Bullshit.

If it were truthful, that recording would say:
 "we are experiencing an unusually high level of executive compensation and consequently are not hiring enough people to run the business properly".

There are thousands of businesses across America that need more sales people, customer service reps, technical people, clerks, etc. but instead of hiring enough people to staff the counters and floors, the execs are choosing to pad their own pockets and raise their own pay, give themselves perks and bonuses, and run the companies on a skeleton crew.

"Downsizing" was the euphemism fat cat execs used to fire people, make the poor slobs left work two jobs for the price of one, and stick the money in their own pockets. What bullshit.

Think about it: if all the executives were sick for the day, the business would still go on. If the sales floor staff didn't show up, it's all over.

For every $1,000,000 some yacht owning private plane flying CEO chooses to enrich himself with, he could have hired 30 people at $33,000 per, and some of these greedy motherfuckers have pay and perks in the hundreds of millions of dollars, which would hire a lot of needed staff. Not that they should do it out of the goodness of their hearts, but because it's good business to be staffed at adequate levels (unless of course your yacht needs a new coat of paint).

So that's a lot of jobs that need to be done, aren't getting done, and could get done, but won't be done as long as the top execs can get away with it. My guess is that millions of jobs could be created immediately by redirecting business resources from executive pay to hiring needed workers.

As far as the %47 not wanting to work, that's simply not true. Maybe there is %10 of them that would slack off, but the rest want to work, they are looking for work, and they can't find work.

Let's go a little deeper.
If we look at the total number of hours of work in this country and ask how it is divided, we see that 120 hours of work can be 3 x 40hr jobs or 4 x 30hr jobs. In other words, there is more than enough work for everyone in the country, if the workweek were shorter. People could actually spend time with their families and have some time for themselves.

Could people make enough to live on? Now we get into the issues of how wages and prices get set, who sets them. The basic answer is that the owners have workers and renters by the balls and squeeze as hard as they can get away with. "I'm taking what they're giving cause i"m working for a living". If you're someone who believes the rich should have the right to charge whatever they can, perhaps you also believe that someone with a gun has the right to take whatever they want from you, because in a subtle way, you do have a gun to your head.

Also, let's not forget that the rich have owned and operated government for a long time, buying the senators and congressmen and laws that they want,  so the whole system is rigged for them and against you.

I want to clarify one point. I do not hate the rich, i have no problem with some people having more than others, even much more. i don't begrudge it to them, i'm not jealous, i don't think they're bad people just because they've got a lot of bucks. I've met a lot of nice people who have money.

What i do have a BIG problem with is cheating, rigging the game, taking advantage of your position of power to pay people as little and charge them as much in rents and other costs as possible, so that you can engorge your already bloated asset sheet, while people go homeless and lack the simple basics of life.

i believe in the old fashioned value of an honest day's work for an honest day's wage. I do not believe that is happening today, not just in wages, but in every facet of economic life. How can a millionaire pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than a factory worker. How can a landlord take depreciation allowance, while a house owner can't. Ad infinitum.
It's cheating, pure and simple, legal cheating because of legal bribes to government officials in the form of "campaign finance contributions", so that loopholes are added to obscure provisions of bills, often at the last minute, under the cover of darkness.

Let's ask the moral question: is it right to short the workers' salaries in order to distribute earnings to shareholders who have done absolutely no work? I'm all for distributing earnings and dividends once you've paid a decent wage to the people who actually do the work, but to screw the workers in order to give the money to a bunch of people sitting on their asses? It's wrong.

As far as taxes go, this article gives a few numbers
http://www.alternet.org/economy/ten-numbers-rich-would-fudged

"3. An amount equal to ONE-HALF the GDP is held untaxed overseas by rich Americans.

The Tax Justice Network estimated that between $21 and $32 trillion is hidden offshore, untaxed. With Americans making up 40% of the world's Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, that's $8 to $12 trillion in U.S. money stashed in far-off hiding places.
Based on a historical stock market return of 6%, up to $750 billion of income is lost to the U.S. every year, resulting in a tax loss of about $260 billion." from article cited above.

If you're working for an hourly wage they withhold your taxes, in full, in advance,
if you are wealthy enough, you hire a creative accountant, take advantage of a thousand loopholes, pay almost nothing, and laugh all the way to the bank.
Why is is that you pay sales tax on a hammer, but not on a stock market transaction?
Why do landlords get to take depreciation allowance on the rental house, but you living in your own house don't?
There are pages and pages of examples, but this is a digression, and if you're a tea party type you're probably so busy thinking i'm a socialist that you've lost the main point, which is

there are lots of jobs that need doing,
companies have the money to hire people,
instead the execs are putting the money in their own pockets

Obama tax Proposals

Wrong focus. The problem isn't just low tax rates on the wealthy, it's that the rates don't get paid by anyone with the money to hire an accountant, especially not the rich, to the point where many rich people and corporations pay virtually nothing. Rates may not have to go up, but they do need to be paid in full, not made a mockery of. Then, if rate increases are necessary, by all means the wealthy should pay more, since they benefit more from the system.

Why get into a fight with Republicans over raising rates, when the effective approach would be to say "let's close all the loopholes". Who could argue with that? and, "let's not let the wealthy hide their money in overseas tax shelters", how could the Republican rank and file not understand cheating.

And if hardware store purchases are taxed, why not a tax on stock transactions, and other business dealings?
So many loopholes, exemptions, untaxed transations, hidden funds; why aren't Obama and the Democrats looking for revenue from these sources, which would provide massive revenue?

i am not necessarily against raising rates on the upper brackets, and i am certainly for the end of the Bush giveaways, but it's a joke to raise rates when the current ones aren't even being paid.
-----
This article gives a few numbers
http://www.alternet.org/economy/ten-numbers-rich-would-fudged

from article above
3. An amount equal to ONE-HALF the GDP is held untaxed overseas by rich Americans.

The Tax Justice Network estimated that between $21 and $32 trillion is hidden offshore, untaxed. With Americans making up 40% of the world's Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, that's $8 to $12 trillion in U.S. money stashed in far-off hiding places.

Based on a historical stock market return of 6%, up to $750 billion of income is lost to the U.S. every year, resulting in a tax loss of about $260 billion.

This website is worth looking at
http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/front_content.php?idcat=2

http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/775-the-rich-are-taxed-enough
following excerpt cut and pasted from transcript of above link

the question of fairness. Is the system, as it is now, at tax rates that exist now, in a
system that -- the one that we have, is it fair? Art Laffer.
Arthur Laffer:
Yeah. No, it's not. It's totally not. And let me use an example if I may, Warren Buffett.
He was sitting there asking my friends and I need to have higher tax rates, and I looked
at his letter to the New York Times, and he said he paid a little less than 7 million in
taxes, and he said his tax rate was 17.4 percent, which I did the math, hold back, I'm a
wiz, but I divided it. He had adjusted gross income of $40 million in that year.

I then went to Forbes. His wealth increased from 40 billion to 50 billion. I went to the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and what you found there is he gave 1.75 billion to
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, not counting his sons’ foundations or his
daughter's foundation. Now, as a definition of "income," to me income is what you
spend, what you give away, and your increase in your wealth. It s called the Simon
definition of income.
 if you look at Warren Buffett,
his income that year was $12 billion, and he paid 7 million in taxes. That is a tax rate of
six 1/100th of 1 percent on his true income. 

That is obnoxious. But it's not because of
any rates raising would change that tax. You've got to broaden the tax base by getting rid of all these exclusions, deductions, eliminations, and tax true income at low rates.

And that is what's fair. The guys who play the game, and you look at the Forbes 500 and you see all of them with their tax exemptions, look at all the 501c3s, all the loopholes.
That's what we've got to go after, not raising tax rates on the last three people who actually pay it.

-----------------------
the following is a cut and paste from site below
definitely check this site out

http://payupnow.org/

General Electric made $44 billion from 2008 to 2010, but received over $4 billion in tax rebates! (Listen to more...)

Bank of America (BAC)
Forbes asked in 2010: "How did Bank of America not pay any taxes on $4.4 billion in income?" Bloomberg explains: its financial statements were “delusional” (Listen to more…)

Oil giant Exxon made $34 billion of net income in 2009, but paid no income taxes in the United States…(Listen to more)

Citigroup had 4 quarters of billion-dollar profits in 2010, but paid no taxes...(Listen to more)

Wells Fargo (WFC)
Wells Fargo purchased Wachovia and claimed a $19 billion tax credit, despite a record net income of $12.3 billion…(Listen to more)

HP's U.S. income tax rate was 4.3% in 2008 and 2.3% in 2009…

Verizon's 10.5% tax rate is "due to its...venture with Vodafone." Vodaphone has been the primary target in UK Uncut's protests…(Listen to more)

Chevron (CVX)
 Of this year's taxes, just $200 million were paid in the U.S." That's a 1% tax rate…(Listen to more)

Boeing (BA)
 Boeing paid no U.S. taxes on over $4 billion of income in 2010. In fact, they got $124 million back from the taxpayers…(Listen to more)

AIG helped individuals trying to shelter hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from federal taxes…(Listen to more)

Carnival (CCL)
 Carnival Cruise Lines paid 1% in taxes on its $11.5 billion profit…

Koch Industries (private)
The government subsidies and tax-free benefits that accrue to the "libertarian" Koch brothers have been well documented…(Listen to more)

How to reclaim government-It's time

Why is it that business owns government, that so many laws and regulations benefit the rich at the expense of everyone else, and how can we change that?
And why is it that businesses seem to get away with doing whatever they want, regardless of the effects on the public? often, as Ralph Nader puts it, privatizing profits while socializing costs, meaning they get the profits while we pay the bills to clean up the messes they leave?

So many causes, so many issues, and underneath so many of the problems of America, 2 main roots:
1) the fact that we don't have elections, we have auctions.
2) Corporate Personhood is a licence for crime, an incentive for bad behaviour, a get out of jail free card (actually you never get charged, you get rewarded for crimes). Individual responsibility is the basis of morality and ethical behaviour, at the minimum not doing something you will be punished for. With Corporate Personhood, CEOs and other executives have protection from consequences, which encourages them to make decisions that will boost their own profits and salaries, even if people die.

1) if we removed the money from politics, totally, so that we didn't have a system of legalized bribery, in which those with the most money got what they wanted, and
2) Individuals were responsible for intentional violations of the law, and criminal negligence (of course there are normal mistakes, and this is not what i am talking about), then
the government, elected officials, would be a lot more likely to deal with issues on their merits, not just whose money they need.

Ok, everybody knows the problems, here's one important suggestion for a solution:
What if every separate group working on fixing all the problems formed a united front, came to the realization that there are underlying master causes that result in all the specific problems, realize that until the government is not bought and paid for by the highest bidder, and until the CEOs have personal responsibility for the havoc they wreak, that it's going to be a whole lot more difficult to create positive change (and it can still happen).

It like complaining about a crab apple tree producing crab apples. What do you expect. The system is totally corrupted, and until the rules of the game change, what do you expect. I get so frustrated by all the well meaning people who don't seem to understand this.

So what if Greenpeace and MoveOn and everybody else got on the same page and started a united campaign to talk money out of politics and end Corporate Personhood. It's time.

and as for the environment, global warming, pollution, etc, the key issue is that the costs are not factored into the price paid. Stuff is cheap only because the total costs, the costs of disposal, of pollution, the costs on human health, the costs when the earth and the oceans and the atomosphere get polluted and degraded, the costs are not included in the purchase price. As a society, America is in denial that stuff is very expensive, when all factors are included.

So, all costs need to be factored into purchase price, a very inconvenient truth indeed, which i believe is one intention of carbon taxes. So then we get into issues of factories closing, which brings up the whole issue of an economy founded on material production and consumption, which is inherently unsustainable.

2012 Poems

2012 Poems

i realized after typing this that i had already posted these poems on 4/26, however i made some slight editing changes, so these versions are slightly different.

Awakening (written 3/26/12)

Awakening from a long dark dream
a dream that has lasted lifetimes
a dream that started when I got so hurt that
i turned bitter, cynical
a dream where everything i saw
by which i mean all the conceptions and
interpretations i held in my mind of what I
"saw"
in the "world"
in "people"
was filtered through a dark layer
a layer of smoke, of disappointment
disappointment in myself
disappointment in others
and most especially
disappointment in God

a focus on the negative,
the stupid, the greedy,
the selfish, the cruel
who needs the newspapers, or the evening news,to present
their distorted, slanted litany of war, greed and atrocity
when i was carrying my own filter
a filter which even the buddha or jesus would have trouble being seen through
if they were here in person, not just some ideal in the mind

Awakening to find that
there is suffering, and
there is joy, and
there is a choice, and
it takes work, and
it has been done, and
if one person can do it,
anybody can do it
i can do it
so can you



My heart is a locked box
4/11/12
---
my heart is a locked box to which
only you hold the key
if only i knew who you were

i have never met you, and so
i wait aimlessly
only half believing that you will ever come

INTERNAL WEATHER
4/26/12
----
internal weather
mental, emotional, physical

the forecast early today is for
obsessive, frearful thoughts
often focussing on politics and the environment
often as a result of reading Internet websites, but
sometimes more personal
resulting in raging emotional storms
often invisible to the outside world
resulting in upset stomach, back trouble,
headaches, feelings of bodily weakness, and
many other troubles

Later today expect periods of calm
resulting from practices such as
meditation, tai chi, yoga, forgiveness
resulting in remission of symptoms, for now
until the next storm breaks out

it's that time

Like many other people i know, i have been going through big changes. The life i lived for years, bouncing around a few weeks here a few weeks there, low income, invisible to the greater world (for the most part), the wandering sadhu, wandering minstrel, blahblahblah; i appreciate, honor and am grateful for all the experiences i had, lessons i learned, people i met through that mode of life, and i'm feeling done with it, ready to begin something new, a more rooted, more visible, more manifested in the world life with a home, band, steady relationship, real income, honor, recognition and reward. Bring it on.

Reading Dharma Bums (new poems)

Reading Dharma Bums

Reading Dharma Bums
Walking down Berkeley streets wearing brown pants and a navy blue t-shirt
clothes which i imagine the beats to have worn
preparing to go camping to Big Sur and Mt. Shasta
then a trip up the coast to Seattle
living that other American Dream
The dream of freedom

oh jack, you came to such a sad end, but
you inspired millions and millions
among them this humble writer
you are one of my spiritual ancestors
thank you

-------

What Can Compare

What can compare with the feeling of
walking around drunk, but 
not too drunk
on a nice sunny day
walking into shops 
finding open bathrooms
talking with shopkeepers
feeling free but
wishing you had something to lose

Understanding the difference between Republicans and Democrats

To use an analogy from slavery days: there were "good" masters who made sure their slaves got enough to eat and did not work them to death, and there were bad masters who said fuck em, but neither of them questioned the institution of slavery.
Today, the Democrats are the "good" corporate capitalist party who think the wage slaves should at least have some semblance of a decent life. The Republicans are the corporate capitalist party that says we shouldn't waste money on people who aren't rich, but both parties totally accept the idea of corporate capitalist plutocracy.
You can tell this right away by the fact that election day is held on a workday and is not a national holiday, which makes it a lot harder for working people to find the time to vote.

Given the current system, which gives third parties almost no chance, the Democrats are clearly the superior choice, but it still sucks.

My ideas on spirituality and religion

WARNING: there is no doubt that i will be revising and adding to this a lot. This is today's version
edited 1/30/13

1) Western Organized Religions present the very definition of religion as a mental exercise of subscribing to a set of beliefs, believing in God, the Bible, Jesus, etc. It's about accepting someone's word for it, without any personal experience. I have a whole post on this blog about My Ideas on Christianity and the Bible, so i won't repeat myself here, but i suggest you take a look at that post, it ties in with this one.

In stark contrast, the Eastern Religions speak of doing practices which hone our spiritual senses so that we may have a direct experience of  true reality. Senses we do not even know we have available, let alone use. Systems such as yoga (the complete yoga system, not just the exercises which are only a small part of classical yoga)  present systematic methods for developing these senses, in the same way that one might sharpen one's sense of hearing music through ear training. Meditation is the best way i know to do this, the most fundamental  practice of all.

Just to be clear, when i talk of having an experience of Spirit through sharpening the spiritual senses, i'm not speaking of some big dramatic Moses seeing God on the mountain kind of experience, i'm talking about a quiet sense of something more than our little self. Many have experienced and written about feeling/perceiving/having a sense of some higher power, some guidance, some meaning and purpose in the experiences of our lives, some sense of something more than just the material world. They feel it to be true, not just believe with the mind.

The Easterners say that if you don't have direct experience, your belief is without substance. To Westerners raised on Christianity this sounds really fantastic, but so did cell phones 100 years ago.

Western Organized Religion teaches people are saved or not, good or bad. Easterners teach that we have a dual nature, that we are both a human self and a divine Self, and that our task in life is, through doing practices, to develop our spiritual senses to the point where we realize the Self. Through an ongoing spiritual progression involving reincarnation we learn and grow to that point. No Heaven, No Hell, just cause and effect.

2) A "religious" organization is still basically an organization. Once an organization is formed, too often  the fearful, controlling people take charge, and the organization becomes about money and power. In the West, people who talked about personal experiences of God were often burned at the stake (by Christians) or beheaded (Muslims). If you're weren't/aren't with the official program, you're a sinner. This makes sense, because independents threaten the power of the organization to control people's lives.

Western Organized Religions, especially Christianity, have left a very bad taste in people's mouths, to the point where many people have rejected the whole idea of religion and spirituality because of that, and i think that's terrible, because opening the spiritual senses and having a direct experience of something greater than ourselves is essential to being healthy and happy.

I refer readers to several books for a start: 1) the Upanishads, 2) the Tao Te Ching 3) The Bhagavad Gita 4) The Dhammapada 5) the poetry of Hafiz
----------------------
Given all that, if i state some of my own beliefs, which are based in my own experiences, I believe that:
(and don't accept a single word of this just because i say it, have your own experiences. What difference does it make what i believe.)

* The whole universe is conscious and alive, and that we as human beings are part of this greater pattern,  this Great Spirit, in the same way that every cell in our body is part of us. The scientific evidence can be found in quantum mechanics, specifically what is sometimes called "The Field". We truly are all one, all connected.

* We are usually not aware of this, especially in our everyday lives, at beta frequencies of brain waves. However, through various practices we can increasingly experience this, in what are called "mystical"experiences.

Christianity teaches original sin, that we are essentially bad and need to be made good. In contrast, Hinduism teaches that we are all God incarnate, and our path is to remember that, while Buddhism teaches a similar idea that at our essence we all are all enlightened, yet have forgotten, in the dust and clouds of craving and aversion which obscure our true nature. Meditation is the key to letting the muddy waters of desires and thoughts settle so that we can perceive our true nature.

* I agree with the Hindu and Buddhist viewpoints and believe that regaining the consciousness of our true identity as a manifestation of the One is one of the main purposes for existence for everyone, along with the purpose of sharing love, which naturally comes about as the experience of connection with everyone and everything gradually occurs as the result of doing practices.
i
*I think that everyone alive would be best served by making their #1 goal in life to become the best person they can be, in whatever ways are meaningful for them, at whatever level of understanding they have of the concept of bettering themselves, and ultimately that means realizing the Self.

* I believe that learning to live in joy is one of the greatest lessons we are here to learn in life, that and becoming as conscious as we can, somatically, psychologically, psychically, spiritually.

This means that we have to really clean out our internal "garbage" of old wounds, negative programming and beliefs, and begin opening ourselves up to the light, allowing ourselves to receive whatever good the Universe has for us, which may be as simple as learning to just appreciate being alive. The old phrase, "attitude is everything", has a lot of truth to it. One can make the best of a bad situation or the worst of it, choosing bitterness and negativity, or trying at least not to make things worse by poisoning oneself with negativity of all sorts, maybe even trying to see the lessons the situation is there to teach, implying that everything has a reason
and i realize how much of a struggle many people's lives are, not trying to deny that.

* I believe that we reincarnate time and again for this purpose, just the way we go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning. We are spiritual beings having material experiences, not the reverse. We have specifically chosen where and when to incarnate, (time, parents, etc.) into the situation which is optimum for us to learn the lessons we came to work on in this life, albeit it sometimes seems like an extremely harsh school when one thinks of all the horrible things people have done to others. I want to make clear that we do NOT have to suffer to learn; i have read that one of the most important markers in a souls' evolution is when it becomes able to learn through joy, rather than suffering.

* I believe that there is some sort of Great Spirit, and various levels of spiritual beings, that love us and  help us as much as we allow ourselves to receive. Put another way, i believe that God unconditionally loves us, never judges or condemns us, always tries to help us.

* I also believe that from time to time great spirits incarnate on Earth in the form of Jesus, Buddha, and probably others, and that many lesser teachers are always around to help us, sometimes not in obvious ways. The world is a one room schoolhouse which we are all in together for a higher purpose.

* I believe that most of our problems come from cutting ourselves off from the light and unconditional love the Universe has for us, usually because of a) self judgement and guilt, and b) anger at God, for all the suffering in the world, for example for allowing the Holocaust, and of course anger about our own suffering.

* Even so, i believe that, by our very nature as small individuations of the Great Spirit, at bottom people are good, even though it can be pretty hard to tell that at times.

healthcare

Got an election flyer in the mail from someone against "Obamacare". Whether you are for or against,
Obamacare is not the issue. The real issue is, what kind of healthcare are we getting?

1) American medicine is a for profit industry. There was a chart making the rounds on Facebook showing how much the same services and procedures cost in different countries. America is by far the most expensive, in some cases 6x more expensive.
Overcharging is the simplest layer.

The incentives are to make as much money as possible, and this means
*emphasizing treatment rather than prevention
*suppressing or ignoring unprofitable treatments
*ignoring the nutritional, psychological and environmental causes of disease

i mean, think about it, is the incentive to come up with a cure for a disease that you take one time and costs $10, or subject you to a lot of expensive procedures and get you addicted to expensive drugs that treat the symptoms temporarily, and leave you needing more?

Anyone who researches this stuff can't help but come to the conclusion that it's a big scam.

2) Looking a little deeper, our society is a factory for disease. Poisons in the air, food, water, workplace,  electromagnetic radiation from everything from cell phones to flourescent lights, and not just physical toxins, but tons of psychological stressors. It's a very stressful society to live in, even if you're "successful".

3) and now the ground floor: what kind of care are people taking care of themselves? Are they exercising, eating a good diet, doing de-stressing practices, in short are Americans taking responsibility for their own health, or are they living unhealthy lives and then going "Doctor, fix me".

These are the real issues.

Here's a link to an earlier blog post of mine on Western Medicine.

Metaphysics, Materialism and left wing politics

Two of the main threads in my life are metaphysics, especially how it can be used for my personal and spiritual growth,  and politics, which has so much to do with creating (or destroying) the environment i live in every day . I've spent a lot of time and energy trying to reconcile my understanding of how they relate, and at this point i want to put out a few ideas.

For the most part i agree with the views of the left, but the energy is often just so hard to take. Victimhood, anger, blame, judgement, arrogance, condescension, hostility, and don't think that i haven't expressed, often and vehemently, all these energies myself. If i was a right winger or a businessman, no way i'm listening to people who are attacking me.
My view is that all this is coming from fear. At least in my own case, that's what i find.

The question, is this productive or counter productive. To meekly lie down and get used for a doormat, fuck that. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but ultimately, to squeak and to blame are different.

In my own personal growth work i have found that it is far more effective to focus on the positive results i do want than to endlessly fight against my flaws, to be positive, rather than negative against negativity, and that's getting results for me. I've been reading peace pilgrim's Steps toward inner peace, and i'm finding it inspiring. This is a woman who walked 25,000 miles in 28 years, starting when she was 45 years old, to deliver the message of Peace across america, and i believe that many of the seeds she sowed have bourne fruit.

It seems to me that those who have spiritual beliefs have greater power in the political arena, indeed in everything they do. Would Civil rights, or the abolition of slavery, or Gandhi have happened without this. It is so unfortunate that so many people have reacted to the problems with Christianity and it's hypocrisy and abuses that they have thrown the baby of spirituality out with the bathwater of the corrupt church, and yet, without a spiritual fountain of strength, people are often left feeling small and helpless against the large forces of selfishness and greedy exploitation shown by those in power, in contrast to the strength one draws from having a spiritual root for the power to flow into you.

Just to be clear, i'm talking of real spiritual grounding such as the Quakers or Gandhi had, not some empty lip service. This only comes from practice. Yes, there are plenty of people whose version of spirituality includes not getting their hands dirty with politics, but sooner or later everyone on the path will take what they have learned and apply it to the service of making the world a better place for everyone, not just themselves.

I really think that all of us who are against Corporate Personhood, against GMOs, against economic injustice, against environmental pollution and environmental racism, against repressive government surveillance, etc,----i think we need to start being for things, and most especially, our energy needs to shift from all the negativity to a more engaging view of those whose actions are creating problems as misguided, wounded and wrong, but not evil, not demonize them, nor hate them, and i think that true effectiveness comes from a spiritual perspective.

Somewhere it says "Hatred does not cease by hatred, but by love alone. This is an old law, ancient and inexhaustible". I'm starting to believe that applies just as much to politics as to personal relationships.

My ideas on Christianity and the Bible

*for the most part i find the bible a very brutal, harsh and unkind book, 
with perhaps %5-10 nuggets of inspired teaching.
*I think the Bible has very, very little to do with the actual teachings of Jesus,
------------

Right at the beginning i would like to state that i revere Jesus as a great spiritual teacher, one of the greatest. Indeed, both Hindus and Buddhists, even Muslims, also revere him, they just don't believe he was the only one or the last one. 
I am not writing this to deride or attack Christians, but to point out what seem to me to be great logical inconsistencies.

1 So many so called Christians seem much more concerned with who to hate than who to love.
This seems directly opposite to Christ's teachings.
They seem so angry about Gay Marriage and abortion.  Hundreds of millions of children and adults are starving worldwide, indeed here in America, people lacking the basic necessities of life, yet there are no propositions put on state ballots to outlaw starvation and other sufferings.

Also, it's confusing to me how so much of the military is made up of followers of a man who said to turn the other cheek, and how so many Christians believe in War. The answer i come up with is that most so called Christians give lip service to Jesus, but in practice follow the old testament judgement, punishment and anger model.

Many people who consider themselves Christians seem very accepting of brutality and violence, even torture and genocide, whether it's war, football, movies or television. On the other hand, they seem to be very condemning of expressions of sex, intimacy and pleasure, as the incident at the Super Bowl a few years ago epitomized, where seeing Janet Jackson's breast was deeply shocking for many viewers, while the game itself, where large grown men try to hurt each other, was exciting and interesting.

I think that this has caused a great deal of stress and mental illness through the ages. People were and are taught to not accept their own sensual natures, to be at war with themselves, often living their whole lives in a state of dis-ease (this goes triple if you are gay).
Not a prescription for a healthy society.

I have met some very good, kind, loving people who are bible believers, but they seem to be the exception, not the rule.

2 Christians say that it's true because the Bible says so, and that one should just trust that authority without questioning, as well as trusting whatever their preacher says.

I can't help but contrast the Buddha's statement that one should not accept what he said blindly, but rather test whether it is of worth and use, with the Christian belief that one should not expose oneself to other beliefs because one might be swayed by the devil. Christianity doesn't seem to show much confidence in either the doctrines or the believers.

It seems to me that Christians are taught to not question their beliefs, to not think creatively. Instead, they are taught to unquestioningly, blindly obey authority, and they seem to carry this into every realm of life. Unfortunately, it seems to me that this is the root cause of authoritarian governments, and the big reason why politicians and other authority figures can lie and get away with it, because people have been trained to obey and not question authority. An unthinking, unquestioning populace seems to me a terrible basis for democracy.

Christianity says "believe and be saved", in contrast to the Eastern idea of experiencing truth through various practices. The Christian monastic tradition has some sense of this, and Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart and Theresa of Avila certainly experienced God, but how many contemporary Christians, especially evangelicals, have any idea at at that a Christian mystical tradition exists?

The Eastern traditions teach that man has a dual nature, higher and lower, that it is our task to get in touch with our higher nature, and that no matter how bad our deeds, it is like the sun hidden by dark clouds. In contrast, the biblical traditions teach that man is vile and depraved, original sin, and that we need mercy and forgiveness because we're so bad. Maybe that's true, i don't think so.

In addition, many Christians believe in eternal damnation, that is, spending all eternity being tortured, and believe that if they don't believe in the Bible, perhaps even go against it, they will be in eternal suffering. In effect, a gun is put to their heads and they are terrorized and coerced into not questioning, "believing", and of course these are the children of children of children who for many generations were similarly terrorized and brainwashed, told to give up critical thinking and using their own judgement, trained to just blindly obey.

It is very difficult for me to take seriously the statements and beliefs of people who have been terrorized into submission since earliest childhood, by people who were similarly terrorized into submission.

How difficult it must be, after years, indeed generations, of being threatened with the most horrible punishment for questioning what you have been told, to open your mind to a dispassionate evaluation of that dogma.

Take a look at a book entitled The Year Of Living Biblically, by A.J. Jacobs

3 Most self identified Christians seem to have no idea of the history of how the Bible was put together, or what the teachings of the early church were. Some don't even know that the Catholic and Protestant bibles have a different number of books.
Many Christians seem woefully ignorant of some of the most important parts of their religion. Many don't seem to even know that the Bible was put together at the order of the Roman Emperor Constantine, and that the politics of which texts to include and which to exclude made American politics look like a day in the park.
How many bible believers know that Matthew and Luke were not written by Matthew and Luke, but by people writing in their names who had never seen Jesus.
How many people know that scholars generally consider that, in the early years after Jesus, there was a short manuscript containing the sayings of Jesus, and that this is the basis for much of the words of Jesus found in the bible. Scholars call this document "Q".
How many people know of the great diversity of very different Christian doctrines in the first 200 years after Christ, or that many early Christians believed in reincarnation?
see Lost Christianities
Take a look at the work of Bart Ehrman,  for example
Misquoting Jesus, The Story behind who changed the words of the bible and why

How many people know that Yahweh, Jehovah in the Old Testament, was the war god of certain tribes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh_(Canaanite_deity)

There is even scholarly evidence that Jesus may have accepted homosexuality (see link below)
http://www.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence/gay_couple.html

Things are nowhere near as simple as many people who consider themselves christians believe.

4 The words of Jesus constitute about 2 per cent of the pages of the bible. In practice, i think that this is about how much so called "Christianity" has to do with Jesus.
The bibles i have seen are about 1300 pages. The old testament is about 1000 pages, about %70 of the bible, the New about 300 pages.
Of these, about 130 pages are the four gospels directly about Jesus, about %10 of the total bible.
If one takes a highlighter and highlights only the words of Jesus, they come to maybe 20-30 pages, or about %2 of the total words of the bible. I really don't understand why they call it Christianity when there is so little directly by Jesus and not much more directly about him.
It seems to me that most people who call themselves Christians should really call themselves Biblists, and perhaps even Old Testament Biblists. I realize that these people consider that the Bible is the word of God and their connection with Jesus.

 Try this exercise:
Get a bible you don't mind marking up.
Take a highlighter, highlight all the times in the Old Testament the angry Jehovah is pissed off and threatening punishment,
then go through the new testament and highlight all the instances where people are found wanting, there are a number of those.
On the other hand, if you take a different color highlighter and highlight those spots where god is happy and pleased with people, not so many. Try it, don't just take my word for it.

Statistically speaking, the main message of the Bible seems to be that people are bad and deserve to be punished, especially they are bad and deserve to be punished for not obeying the authority of the Lord.
And what terrible, disproportionate punishment;
to be sent to a torture chamber for all eternity, with no second chance

I simply cannot believe that a loving "Father" would do this. For me, on this rock alone, the whole thing founders, loses credibility.

Just looking at the words of Jesus, what i see is him forgiving the woman taken in adultery, giving the Sermon on the Mount, practicing non-violence, telling Peter to put up his sword, saying "as you do to the least among them you do it unto me". The teachings contained in the words of Jesus are often totally opposite to what i see believed among Christians, especially conservative christians and fundamentalists. That's why i think they should call themselves Biblists, rather than christians. One of the things i find admirable about Christianity has been the message that no matter how bad your sins, God loves you, and many people, criminals, etc, have turned their lives around based on that, but that seems to be one of the few loving parts of the dogma.

My perception is that proselytizers often do a "bait and switch"; god loves you, but when you get a little farther into it, he'll send you to a torture chamber for all eternity if you don't obey him. I've read in a number of auto-biographies how children woke up with nightmares night after night after being scared by this horrible prospect.
God as the greatest terrorist of all

Based on all the research i have done, my belief is that the bible was compiled by the Roman Empire as a way to instill the concept of obedience to authority on the most visceral, deep rooted level, using the horrible threats of eternal torture as a way to terrorize and coerce people into believing, with the carrot of heaven to entice people. Let's not forget that there were many, many manuscripts around at the time the bible was compiled. The bible is a collection of only a few of those manuscripts, chosen by men who had a purpose behind which teachings were chosen for inclusion and which were excluded. My belief is that, on the whole, the manuscripts chosen for inclusion gave the message of FEAR AND OBEY, while more spiritual teachings of love and compassion were, for the most part, excluded.

I have met very few people who i would consider Christians. Mostly i have met biblists who called themselves Christians, a name to which i think they have as much right as Ronald Reagan would have had to call himself a Marxist, which is the opposite of who he was. It often seems that people who start by talking about Christ ultimately worship a book, a book put together by men for their own purposes.

I think that many of these people were so terrorized in childhood by the message that they would be tortured for all eternity, that they were coerced into accepting a text which, if titled more accurately, could be called People are Bad and You're Going to Be Punished Really Harshly.
I see this "people are bad and deserve punishment" attitude showing up in every political issue conservative christians get involved in; long prison sentences for often small offences, capital punishment, acceptance of torture as American policy, Wars, disdain for the poor and needy, etc. It's a very logical consequence of the message which statistically predominates in the bible, which is that people are bad and deserve punishment

In summary, for the most part i find the bible a very brutal, harsh and unkind book, 
with maybe %5-10 nuggets of inspired teaching and
i think the bible has very, very little to do with the actual teachings of Jesus
and yes, i have read large parts of it. Most of the pages i read were soaked in blood.

I think Jesus' name has been used as a cover for many beliefs which are completely opposite to what he taught.  Church history shows that many times the name of Jesus has been used to justify all sorts of ugly, harsh, unloving, generally bad behaviour, such as burning people at the stake, torture, .....

Christianity teaches original sin, that we are essentially bad and need to be made good. In contrast, Hinduism teaches that we are all God incarnate, and our path is to remember that, while Buddhism teaches a similar idea that at our essence we all are all enlightened, yet have forgotten, in the dust and clouds of craving and aversion which obscure our true nature. That makes a huge difference in people's psychology.

Christianity teaches that if one only believes, they will be saved, while the Eastern Religions believe that no one can do your work for you, you have to do it yourself. Teachers are for guidance, support and inspiration, but ultimately you have to walk  road the road yourself. This makes a lot more sense to me.

There are still some people who genuinely carry on in what seems to me the spirit of Christ, who think about what they read and pick the wheat from the chaff, and i'm all for that, for the spirit and teachings of an enlightened, loving Christ, instead of the image of an angry, punishing Jehovah so often presented as being Christianity.

The question for anyone who considers themselves a Christian:
if the Bible can not be trusted, how can you know Christ and live in a way that accords with his spirit and teachings.   
Good Luck